<p>Hello CC! I am a college freshman this year going to my top choice college (Claremont McKenna College), and am super excited.</p>
<p>However, recently I have been doing a lot of thinking regarding classes. I mean there is SO much that I want to do and am interested in..</p>
<p>I currently plan on double majoring in International Relations and Japanese, which are my two main academic interests. However, because I love languages so much, I also want to take Korean and continue learning Spanish, which is the language I mostly focused on in High school (on top of that, I come from a Mexican-American family.)</p>
<p>So the languages alone are 3 classes themselves, and then I have my International Relations classes and graduation requirement classes I need to complete.</p>
<p>Is this too much? I have yet to speak with my advisor, and I know most of my questions will be answered when I meet him/her, but this has really been on my mind. I mean, part of me thinks I could handle it since I went to a college prep school and took 8 classes fall semester and 9 classes spring semester, but then again this is the real deal...</p>
<p>Could I really handle 7 or 8 classes in college, with 3 of them being languages? If I have to eliminate something, I definitely am not going to give up my International Relations and Japanese classes. And I have been doing Spanish my whole high school career, but yet I have a huge interest in Korean. I can't imagine giving up either one....</p>
<p>Anyone have any advice? It would be really well appreciated :]</p>
<p>I'm not sure about anything, but in my opinion it seems like 3 languages might be too much. But then again it seems obvious that languages are your passion, and if you know you're a fast learner, then go for it.</p>
<p>Is this 7 or 8 classes per semester where the normal courseload is 4 classes? If so, then yes. Sure, you took 8 classes in high school, but college is a whole different ballgame. If you determine later that you can do it, that's great, but don't take more than 5 classes your first semester. I took six classes in high school (3 AP, 2 honors, plus Spanish), and that was easier than 4 classes in college.</p>
<p>Don't take more than the normal courseload first term, which is usually 4 or 5 classes (expect to spend on average between 8 and 12 hours per class per week on classtime and homework/study). If you find the normal courseload quite easy, then maybe take more the next term. Use the first semester to know how much you can handle. Taking too many classes first semester often leads to some combination of sleep deprivation, little social life, constant stress, and bad grades. One class in college is like 2 high school classes (including AP classes).</p>
<p>Look in your handbook and see how many credits/hours/units/whatever you need to have to graduate. At my school, you need 120 hours to earn a BA.</p>
<p>Then figure out the number of semesters or quarters you are expected to take each year, and multiply that by four. That's the number of semesters or quarters it is supposed to take an average student to take during his or her undergraduate career.</p>
<p>Divide the first number by the second number. That's how many credits the school expects you to be able to do each semester or quarter and how many you should probably be taking your first semester. For me, 120/8 = 15 hours, which comes out to 5 courses for me. Some classes, such as certain foreign language classes and science classes with labs, sometimes involve 4 or 5 hours a semester, but everything I'm taking is 3.</p>
<p>Also look at how many credits your school allows you to take for "full time" tuition and/or without an advisor's signature for the overload. That's the maximum number your school expects its really good students to be able to handle per semester. You may well be able to take 7 or 8 classes a semester. Some can. Many can't, or at least can't given the other choices they are making about how to spend their time (and that's not a criticism of other people's choices). </p>
<p>I'd suggest that you consider how many semesters you intend to take each language and consider dropping 2 them from this semester's schedule in favor of distribution requirements: those are good classes for exploring what else is out there that you may want to pursue farther, but they're boring and frustrating when you're at a level where you can take upper-division classes in the subjects that really interest you. You can do more language classes later on, and possibly during the summers.</p>
<p>I like languages, too, but concentrate on learning one new one at a time. For a beginner, I think Korean and Japanese together would be too much. You already know Spanish and it's dissimilar from the other two, so I think that's fine.</p>
<p>Something to be aware of: I have cousin who is currently living in Japan. He was an Asian Studies major, and has been on some sort of work program in Japan for the past few years. His tenure in the program ends this year, and he's having MAJOR problems finding work that isn't teaching ESL, because even though he can speak Japanese, he can't read or write it well.</p>
<p>Just something to keep in mind. I don't know what you plan on doing, and it sounds like Japanese is a passion of yours, but if you want to intertwine it with a career of some description, make sure you're aware of everything you need to achieve before you leave school. And definitely go over all of your questions with an advisor.</p>
<p>Also--you said your family is Mexican American. I'm assuming that you can speak Spanish fairly well, if not fluently? If that's true, you likely would be able to test out of lower level Spanish classes if you decide that's something you really want to pursue. </p>
<p>Good luck! I admire you're desire to learn languages; it's something I wish I possessed.</p>
<p>In my opinion......yes. Check out a linguistics major - it might have less requirements for the languages (a semester of a few languages while focusing on a main language). It sounds like you need to spread these classes out a bit - don't kill yourself trying to jam everything into your first semester.</p>
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Could I really handle 7 or 8 classes in college, with 3 of them being languages?
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<p>For the time being, I imagine that this is a moot point. At Scripps, we needed special permission for >5.75 credits (where one full class is one credit), and I can't imagine any advisor signing off on an 8 academic-course schedule for a first semester freshman. I assume that CMC would operate similarly.</p>
<p>You have four years, and plenty of time to experiment. You don't need to cram everything that you want to do into your first semester. You'll likely find the Claremont workload pretty intense...I don't recommend exceeding the normal 4 courses for your first semester. If you have free time (which you might, given that your HS schedule was so heavy), I promise that you'll find plenty of ways to fill it, and you can bulk up your schedule in later semesters. In the beginning, though, I advocate erring on the side of caution.</p>
<p>Your advisor + orientation events will help you get a handle on all this, and your choices will also be affected by the course schedule. It's good that you're already thinking about it, but don't worry yourself too much. There are still a lot of unknowns.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice everyone! I really appreciate all the input from everyone, have decided to not overload myself and instead try to ease in first. The only language I currently really plan on pursuing my first year is Japanese, since I do plan on going into a career with it.</p>
<p>I will pick up Spanish later on in my college career, since I believe I could pick it up easier again later (I do speak pretty good Spanish and I believe I can at least test into Advanced Spanish, or at the very least, Intermediate Spanish.)</p>
<p>As for Korean, perhaps I could study that later on? Japanese is what is important to me, so I definitely will start that now.</p>
<p>Both Scripps and Pomona have language lunch tables (I think that Scripps' are once a week in the main dining hall, and Pomona's are daily in Oldenborg--the foreign language dorm, which has a small dining hall of its own. Both schools would have Spanish tables, though only Pomona would have Japanese). Look into these as ways to keep up conversational skills, plus meet some faculty, even without signing up for the classes right away. Emailing/visiting language profs at the two schools would get you the info.</p>